There's a song on The Shin's new album, that they played live, that has been really echoing in my head. It's called Midenhall, and it's about that time in his life when he started discovering a love for music.

Well, there's a lot more to the song, but that's the bit that's been getting to me:

"Then a kid in class passed me a tapeAn invitation, not the hand of fate"

Having someone introduce you to new music - I know I can remember being in class and having a friend give me a tape of a band I *needed to hear*. I wonder how they do it now- send files? I know a certain teenager watches a lot of Youtube videos, but those don't tend to be bands...)

Anyway, I really like the idea of music being an invitation.

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Hi. I'm home with some sort of respiratory plague. It hit all of a sudden. Ugh. Anyway, I am always searching for new music. I know people who are stuck just listening to what they know and have heard a thousand times. To me it's boring and my ears get bored.

Music IS an invitation. And that's a brill way to describe turning on others to music, G!!

Music is a major, major part of my life. I used to professionally turn folks on to new music and I miss those heady days. Now in my cantankerous recovered punk rock phase I still get a thrill out of watching people's heads explode with music they had no idea was part of the world.

1. Nick Cave – Henry’s DreamTHE consummate singer/songwriter. Nick is a poet's lyricist and his oeuvre is nothing short of astonishing for its breadth, width and length. This album is a torture chamber of exquisite story-telling and his voice is in great form. I recommend ALL of his work from the very dirtiest beginnings to the latest soul-sapping album of personal loss and grief. But more than just lyrics, The Bad Seeds provide musicianship to the words.

I have finally reached a point where my inner music curmudgeon is mostly confined to a back corner of my brain and I can give music other than my beloved favorites a chance. But it can still be hard for me! Lyrics are really important to me in being able to enjoy a song- it's the story that hooks me in to music unless we're talking classical or soundtrack. The story doesn't have to come through the lyrics entirely, but I am pretty hung up on well-wordsmithed lyrics. Which eliminates a lot of things from my pallet. No whining on about generalities need apply for a place on my playlist.

But recently road-tripping with buddies to climb, we've developed a game where we share songs based on topics to pass the miles, and I've heard and enjoyed some great stuff that way, and also been amazed at the range of tastes my friends have, which has been a beautiful thing. We end up using youtube to do it, too, on our phones which can be jacked through to car speakers. It's not efficient in terms of phone data use, but totally worth in terms of miles enjoyed.

Mother's Day was really nice. I went for a hike in the foothills with my son, and there were lots of wildflowers and terrific views, plus... about 67-degrees. Perfect!

The Idol entry situation is more like /o\ , as intersections so often are for me.

For music, the mixtape went to burned CDs a while back (I traded some with my next-oldest sister), and at Christmas I made some custom youtube playlists for my husband and the kids, of things I thought each of them would like. It's like a Venn diagram of me-ness, with some satellites. The hard rock overlaps with my son, sometimes my husband. The bluesy stuff with my husband, sometimes son, rarely daughter. The alt-pop and 80s-redux stuff on my daughter's list has SOME things I also listen to, and others that she would probably like but... yark.

The result is that my husband has enjoyed his list, my son mostly forgets his exists, and our daughter seems afraid to dive in AND has limited internet access at school when she's in her dorm. SOOOooooo... only partial success. \o?